1 Corinthians 12:12

For as the body is one.. . so also is Christ. As an animal body is one, as a man has but one body, so also has Christ one body, the Church, the members of which are many, whose head He is.

1. But S. Augustine objects (de Peccat. Meritis, lib. i. c. 31) that if the Apostle had meant this he would have said, "So also is [the body] of Christ," rather than, "So also is Christ." In other words, he would have said that the body of Christ, the Church, has many members.

2. James Faber gathers from this that the body of Christ being indivisibly united to the whole Godhead, locally fills heaven and earth, which are, as it were, its place and His body. As Plato said that God was the soul of the world, and consequently was in a sense the whole world, so the body of Christ, from its intimate conjunction with Deity, is, like the Divine Spirit, diffused through the whole world, its parts and members are the several divisions of space and the bodies contained in it. But still in respect of the unity of the Deity, and of the body of Christ as its soul, they make up one body, viz., the universe. And hence it is that the Ubiquitarians are supposed to have obtained their false opinion that the body of Christ is everywhere. This absurd doctrine has been confuted by many, but most clearly of all by Gregory of Valentia, in five books written against the heresy of the Ubiquitarians.

3. I say, then, with S. Augustine that the meaning of this passage is simply this. So also is Christ one body, i.e., the Church. For Christ is both head and body to the Church, inasmuch as He sustains all her members and works in them all, teaches by the doctor, baptizes by the minister, believes through faith, and repents in the penitent. For in this sense Christ is not locally but mystically, and by way of operation and effectually, the body, hypostasis, soul, and spirit of the whole Church. As the Church is the body of Christ, its head, so in turn is Christ the body of the Church, because, through the operation of His grace, He transfers Himself into all the members of the Church. So the Apostle often says that we are one in Christ, that through baptism we are incorporated into Christ and made one plant with Him. And Christ said to Paul, "Why persecutest thou Me?" that is, the Christians, My members (Acts ix. 4). So Paul says again: "To me to live is Christ, to die is gain." Therefore S. Francis in his words, "My God, my Love, my All," was but echoing S. Paul.